According to intranet and cloud solutions provider Aerie Consulting, the initial cost for setting up an intranet can reach more than $100,000 for larger companies.
Given such an investment, you should measure your intranet for the same reasons you would internal communications: to make informed strategic decisions, better engage employees (which can improve productivity by 20 to 25%), unearth workforce insights, identify key trends, and improve the overall ROI of your communications.
Here are five metrics to use when measuring your intranet’s effectiveness.
Traffic
Start by measuring how many employees visit your intranet. What percentage of your total workforce accesses it on a monthly basis? Are you increasing the number of visitors each month? Are there other trends?
By monitoring the participation rate, you can determine your intranet’s adoption rate and whether it’s improving or needs analyzing.
Bounce Rate, Click-Through & Time on Site
Analyze how employees interact with the site. Do they visit pages beyond the homepage (bounce rate)? How many pages do they view (click-through)? How long do they spend on each page?
Popular Content
Identify the most popular content by analyzing page views, time on site and site comments. Do users view financial updates, company news or softer cultural content? Do they take advantage of educational opportunities or productivity resources?
Leverage the information to ensure you’re creating a meaningful interaction that engages and makes them more efficient.
Common Searches
Do your employees use your intranet’s search function? Is the tool working properly?
Use search analytics to learn which terms are popular with employees. Is your content relevant to what your employees are looking for? If users are searching and visiting several of the results in a short amount of time, that may signal your content is lacking. Make sure your employees can find what they’re looking for.
Desired Actions Completed
Do you want employees to spend 90 seconds on an announcement page, or do you want them to fill out a crucial form? Set goals and compare specific metrics with corresponding data from other internal comms efforts to evaluate your intranet’s performance.
How to Measure Intranet Success
Google Analytics is one of the most popular choices for measuring intranet performance, but Piwik, Angelfish, and Woopra are worth considering, especially if you have open-source or on-premise needs. Sometimes, tracking capabilities are built directly into your intranet’s back end, but you can also leverage surveys and focus groups to gather data.
Put Intranet Data to Use
Look for trends in the intranet data to determine whether your adoption rate is growing, what types of content are performing well — and which areas need improvement. Then, use your findings to take action and increase your ROI.
Learn how to get the most from your internal emails, social media and other platforms. Download PoliteMail’s Guide to Internal Communications Measurement.
